This blog is about my life as a mom, raising a son with a mood disorder. This is a tough journey and I hope that my words may allow others living with this illness see that they’re not alone. I’m also using this blog as a tool to process my own feelings and let go of the pain that I carry inside. If you’re new to this blog, check out my list of “Important Posts” in the right column and feel free to share your story with me. This blog shouldn’t be used for medical advice.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Holding My Breath

Things have been going really great! Not perfect, but great. Our son still has some anxiety and can be overcome with anger, but his response is much better. He’s shown numerous times a new ability to control himself, which is major progress! Even my younger son asked this week if the doctors figured out what was wrong with his brother and if his anger problem was all gone now. Wow, if that isn’t proof that Trileptal (our mood stabilizer) is working, I don’t know what is.

But unfortunately, we’re praying that things will continue. This week I took my son to see his kidney specialist to do his annual check up on his kidneys. When he was a baby he was diagnosed with kidney reflux, a condition where the “door” from the kidney to the bladder doesn’t close properly, allowing urine to flow back into his kidney. During an infection, one of his kidneys was damaged. Since then, he meets with the specialist to make sure his scarred kidney is still growing and functioning correctly.

Well, this week at his annual exam, our doctor discovered that he has protein in his urine. He believes it may be a side effect from the Trileptal he’s taking, it may be causing the filters within his kidney to malfunction. So our first step is to do another urine test. If the results confirm the protein, then our son will need to have a kidney biopsy done to further investigate the cause.

Right now we’re still at the first step, waiting for the urine test results and still remaining optimistic that this is just a fluke. As the doctor said, “You don’t need to worry yet.”

But I have to admit, my husband and I are disappointed, we just want our son to have a break, not yet another thing for him to go through. But in the meantime, I’m not going to worry, just holding my breath.

5 comments:

Found you on MDJunction. I'm going through a very similar ordeal. I have a 5 yo, 7yo, and 9yo. My 7 yo was diagnosed with BPD in November but has been showing signs since he was 5.

We are in the midst of meds not seeming to work though. It feels like things will get better for a week or two and then they get worse than when they started. We've even tried home bound schooling for a few months. And when he started to seem better we sent him back and now everything feels like it's falling apart.

Hi Marybeth,I'm glad we can connect. I understand the frustration you are living with. We too have seen things get better to later completely fall apart. For us, I think a bad reaction to Seroquel had to do with the worst of it for us. So when things do start to get better, you are still holding on tight!

If you care to share, what were the symptoms that lead to your child's diagnosis?

Well first off, I have BPD as well. Things that he did reminded me of well....me.It took a LONG road to get here. The first diagnosis was ADHD with ODD (because she didn't feel "comfortable" putting the BiPolar label on him while he was so young.) So we tried adderal and it backfired. His highs and lows were out of control and his rages were HUGE.So we did our research and sought out a Specialized Child Psychiatrist with over 30 yrs of experience. Without me even making the suggestion he made the diagnosis almost immediately. That was this past November...we've been struggling ever since.

Well, we’re still trying to figure out what is causing this. The doctors believe it is a mood disorder, but not sure which one. Mainly because he is so young and they don't want to put a label on him. We've had many disorders assigned to him, such as anxiety, explosive disorder, depression and ODD. That's why I like to ask other Mom's about their kids, I figure maybe someday we can figure this out.

About Me

I’m a 45 year old Mama Bear married to my sweetheart for 25 years. We have 3 wonderful boys ages 16, 14 and 12. My oldest started showing signs of a mood disorder around 8 years ago. He is diagnosed with Bipolar NOS and recently Autism (Aspergers) and is taking Lithium, Wellbutrin and Melatonin and is in therapy with our HMO. Our youngest was diagnosed with Autism (Aspergers), ADHD and may also have a mood disorder. He is currently taking Prozac to help with anxiety and depression and has had great success with ABA therapy.